Answers
by QueenC
Summary: We're going w/ the PG13 here cause, it's a situation that HP lovin' children shouldn't be reading about, and become confused with their character's identities. No it isn't slashy! Bah, you people! I really like this one, so any constructive ideas rule!!!
1. Questions

Answers  
  
He sat alone, not much one could be doing anyways. One giant heavy sigh rolled out of his lungs. Damn, he seemed to be sighing a lot lately. His whole body felt tired, as if he couldn't move if his life was in danger. Good thing there had been no word of Voldemort for over a year. Maybe if there had been, he'd have something to do. He glanced across the common room. Fred with Angelina kissing in the corner, some other people petting each other, gazing into one another's eyes. "This sucks" He grumbled to himself, slumping back into the depths of the chair, and sticking his feet up on the ottoman.  
  
"Hey Harry" He heard Hermione call from across the common room. She dropped her bag full of books at the side of the ottoman. She looked around, and saw there wasn't anyplace to sit, so she basically sat next to him, more so, right on top of Harry. Her eyes darted around the rest of the room filled with people rushing to finish assignments on time, making out, playing games, snuggling.....the list went on and on. "So" She said, shifting her weight, so that her face was about two inches from his, "What is up with you my dear Harry" She said smiling brightly, in a perky tone, that seemed to brighten Harry thoughts....a little.  
  
He glanced up, "Ceiling" He said abruptly. Hermione just looked at him. The look made him change his answer, and he responded like a normal person, "Oh you know, sighing, contemplating stupid things. The norm"  
  
"Oh, like what?" She asked, prying into his mind.  
  
Harry answered quickly, "Stupid things....you don't want to know Herm"  
  
"Oh come one, tell me, I'm you're best friend."  
  
He sighed, and shifted so he could look at her. He smiled when he saw her happy face, eager to listen to him. She would always listen to him. Rom never wanted to hear anything, and Ron never told him things either, but Hermione, she would tell him everything. How much she had a crush on Terry Boot, and how much it hurt to walk through the halls everyday seeing couples all over the place, and not being part of the fad. And he would always talk to her about girls, complain about girls, ask her the girls opinion on subjects that only a girl would know. None of these sorts of thing Ron would ever listen to, or even want to hear about. There was just some crazy connection between the both of them. Both so saddened by being out of the loop, that they found comfort in each other.  
  
"Well.....I'm bored as hell, and sick of seeing all of this around me" he said, motioning to the extreme amount of 'lovey-dovey-ness' in the room.  
  
"Don't I know it..." Hermione said, letting her happy outside drop a bit.  
  
After a moment of both of them in their own little worlds, rummaging about, collection their thoughts that were frightening similar, that came back to the real world.  
  
"God I'm pathetic" Harry sighed as he started into space  
  
Hermione shifted back from her space, to see only the side of his head, "You're only pathetic because you think you're pathetic. And being so pathetic in that pathetic sense. And being in that pathetic aura all the time, only leads to you believe your true pathetic tendencies, therefore leaving you with just that....patheticness." She said quickly, and matter-of-factly.  
  
Harry turned back, "What?"  
  
"Nothing, just babbling..." She said in not much more then a mumbling whisper.  
  
"Now you're mumbling" He retorted.  
  
"Yes nice observation Captain Obvious." She said looking at him, back to her normal self. Harry laughed. She could always make him smile, even when it seemed that the world was falling down around him. Hermiones bright smile and cheerful humor could always lift him back up.  
  
"You seem to be mumbling a lot lately"   
  
Hermione gave him a look again. One would think that soft honey brown eyes couldn't do much to a soul, but hers were different. When they wanted to be, they could pry ones soul right out, or make a person feel all warm and good inside.  
  
Harry yawned, and put his head on Hermione's slumped shoulder. "Quidditch sucking?" She asked softly, glancing down to her half asleep friend.  
  
"The big one" He said in nothing more then a mumble, keeping his eyes closed. Hermione put her head on his, but kept her eyes open, staring into the deepest of space within the common room. Her eyes almost in a catatonic state. Her gaze broke, and she sighed, and let her eyes drop to her lap.  
  
"What are you thinking about?" Harry asked quietly.   
  
Her next sigh was almost on the verge of tears. "How much life sucks."  
  
"Oh...." He said softly, then thought to himself, with his own silent sigh 'Her too'   
  
Hermione glanced to her friend sitting next to her. From behind her back she tapped his back, and muttered 'truto deptho'. In an instant the room went into a blur of gray and bright blue, surrounding them, only them. Harry sat, as if nothing was going on, like in an trance, and Hermione watched in amazement her own power.  
  
The room stopped, and it was entirely gray. The people from before were there, and so was Harry, but he was frozen almost, as were they. Hermione moved as normal, but the room echoed every movement.  
  
"Harry" She said getting up, hearing her voice sound distant, and underwater at the same time. "I did a truth spell, to see what's in your heart. I know you won't understand this when I set it back again, but I figure, my conscience would be cleared if I told you. Even if you won't remember." She said quickly, and barely looking at him, but rolling her eyes into the back of her head, trying to find the answers there somewhere. He just sat there, not moving  
  
"Harry...what are you thinking about right now?" She asked, leaning closer to the stiff figure  
  
In a monotone voice he replied, "Life"  
  
"Again," She sighed to herself thinking about the moment before she had placed the spell  
  
"Life" he said once again  
  
"Oh, no, not that robot Harry." She figured she would stop saying things out loud, because then he would answer her thoughts. 'Alright,' She thought to herself, 'He's got to be thinking about some part of life' She looked forward at the gray figure, "What parts of life Harry?" She asked firmly  
  
"Love, and why I have never seemed to find it" Said the robotic voice of Harry that still stared around the room. Hermione sighed, same as her. How could it be that two people so different were so alike? It made her heart beat even faster.  
  
Just as she was about to ask him a more serious question concerning love, the room started to wiggle, and the colors shifted from gray, and slowly things came back into true color. Harry, now back to himself, stared at Hermione who was standing in front of him, instead of practically sitting on top of him a split second ago.  
  
"What happened?" He asked stupidly, looking around.  
  
"Nothing" Hermione replied, and gloomily came back to sit with him.  
  
Harry watched her. He couldn't stand to see her upset, and he knew she was upset. Hermione could bring a whole rooms emotions along with her. When she was sad, everyone within twenty feet of her was sad as well. He sat, facing her, but she stared out blankly at some point on the wall opposite them. She looked perfectly normal, but her eyes. The same eyes that held so much love, and fire for life were so sad. Eerie and gloomily, as if the world wasn't right, and there was nothing she could do about it.  
  
"Harry?" She asked, still keeping her focus off in the distance, and her voice was harsh and brash, not the normal soft elegant voice she normally spoke in.  
  
"Yes?" He responded, still staring at the side of her head.  
  
Without turning, and speaking very softly, she said in and noise barely louder than a whisper, "Have you ever thought about making all the pain end?" As she finished, she let her eyes close, and wouldn't look at him.  
  
He stared at her, shocked that she would think such a thing. "Herm, what are you talking about?"  
  
"You know perfectly well what I mean Harry Potter!" She said louder, and more angry this time. She looked at him, and now there were tears in her eyes, and the pain she felt was so strong, Harry could feel it too, it was beating down on him, and he couldn't imagine what it must feel like for her. Hermione who lived with all that pain bottled up on the inside.   
  
"Hermione, calm down, what exactly do you mean." He stopped, and with dead far in his eyes, he stared into her strong willed, beautiful honey eyes. "Herm, do you mean to kill yourself?"  
  
"No, I just like making jokes about this sort of thing Harry!" She balled openly. She collapsed onto his shoulder, and wept so hard. Harry only stared at her head of bouncing curls jerking up and down, and breathed heavily. What do you say when your best friend thinks about death like this? What do you do? He let a tear roll down his cheek as he stared at her head. He moved his arm, and put it around her shoulders, and let her head rest softly on his chest. He rubbed her back, and didn't say a word. What would he say?  
  
They sat that way for a good hour, and no one stopped to ask questions. Harry was happy about that. All of a second, the sobbing stopped, and she spoke, "Harry, what is there here for me? I mean, today...I got an owl....my parents are splitting up, and.....and my grades are slipping, I started to take on to much. And...I can't seem to find myself anymore Harry? Do you know what I mean?" She cried softly  
  
"Maybe"  
  
"It's just....I don't know who I am any more. I can't find the good here" She said as she touched her chest where her heart lay, "It's almost as if I have no cares about the people I love, and no cares for me. I feel so empty inside Harry. So, So empty, and I don't know why. What did I do? What the hell did I do!" She wept openly again, and met his eyes. His were strong, yet a little watery. And hers were bloodshot, and depressed, and all the spirit that had once been so present, seemed to disappear. "Harry, its like I'm a shadow of who I am, It's like I'm no longer me, and I don't know what to do about it. The pain that I can't feel, the love that I can't feel, the hate that I can't feel is too much"  
  
"But Hermione, that's no reason to die. Hermione, I love you, you're my best friend, you're like the only family I ever had, and if I lost you, I don't know what I'd do!" He stroke her tear soaked hair, and caressed her cheek. "Hermione, I'd die without you."  
  
She sat silent. She stared at her lap, and then her eyes met his again, "Don't tell Ron" She said, and ran up to the stairs to the girls dormitory.  
  
***  
  
The light of the candle was burningly bright. It was harsh to eyes that were used to the dark, but it was hidden. As the quill scratched against the parchment, tiny splotches began to form where tears fell.  
  
'I cannot go on. There is so much that hurts, and so much that shouldn't, and so much that I want to hurt, and I don't know what to do. Harry, I loved you. More then your friend, more than anything. I wanted to love you forever. You have no idea, and you'll never have an idea. Tell my parents it isn't their fault, even though they helped, and don't tell Ron. He isn't as strong as you are Harry. Don't tell him why. Goodbye.'  
  
She signed the note, the last time she would ever let her perfect loopy handwriting crawl across parchment, and then she crept out of the common room, and up to the owerly. She tied the note around Hedwig, and stroked her head. She had the poison ready, if she could have a gun on Hogwarts there would have been one in her mouth by now. That seemed faster, and easier.  
  
She went back to her room, and looked out the window. "Goodnight" She said softly. There were no tears now. She couldn't feel tears if she wanted too. She believed whole-heartedly that what she was doing was the right choice, the only choice.  
  
She walked to her freezing cold bed, and let herself get comfortable. She poured the poison in her goblet of water, and as soon as she was about to fall asleep, she swallowed, and let the swift death flow through her veins. Her breathing became heavy, and painful, it felt like somebody had let her book bag lie on top of her. The weight was un bearable. Her eyes became fuzzy, she felt so heavy, and she could barely move, like somebody had put the body bind on her. 'So this is death' She thought. Her sigh was heavy, her last sigh, her last breath. She felt....She felt no more, and all was black.  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
A.N.~ Ok, this story is me. I wrote the first part of it after school one Monday afternoon. I am both Harry and Hermione. They are both part of me, and what I feel. Hermione is the me who is happy on the outside, but once you look on the inside, the side she doesn't really show often, she is sad, and she is lonely. Harry on the other hand, is the me that is openly depressed, and has come up with the idea on how to solve it, he just doesn't know how to go about doing it. I am Harry Potter, I am Hermione Granger. I am...way to into these books.......But I do not contemplate suicide. I have thought about thinking about suicide, but never actually tried or really got serious about it. And I don't hate Ron!!!! I love Ron Weasly, he's cool, but he's not a major player in this story. I like to think that h/h is the way to go.......but, hey, a girl can dream can't she?  
  
I was almost on the verge of adding another chapter, but I'll wait and see. There will be Ron in that one. It'll be the reactions. It would also be another part of me, the me that would die if any of my buddies went for the poison. Yes...actually, I do think I'll add another chapter.....  
  
Pip  
Cailin  
Tinuviel   
Magical Me  
MidnightGremlin  
  
I don't know what name to use, so I made a staircase of names. See the staircase? 


	2. Comments

Answers  
  
His sleep was uneasy. Something about the way she had left the room, something about the way his 'helping' hadn't seemed to help, something about her eyes....  
  
A shot. He was awake, and something wasn't right. His brilliant green eyes scanned the room around him. Nothing. Perfectly normal. Ron's heavy breath nearby, Neville's dark snoring from across the room, Dean's still football poster, Seamus's wool socks lying beside his bed. Nothing.  
  
Harry got himself up quickly, and threw his robe on. Something was wrong. He could feel it deep down inside, he just couldn't understand what. He bounded down the stairs of the boys dormitory, then raced up the girls. He stopped abruptly outside the door to the marked room. All was still in the faded glow of the fire in the grate down the stairs. His breathing was rushed a bit. She had seemed so out of it just hours before hand, and he prayed that she was ok.   
  
His heart couldn't take any more...but it was the girls dormitory, so he'd only peek in. With the grace of a cat, he twisted the door handle softly, and let it silently creaked it's way open. His eye shone through one little crack. In the soft blue light of the full moon, he could see Hermione's body lying still. He breathed a sigh of relief. She was fine, only asleep. A sweet sleep in which he hoped she was fulfilled with dreams of happiness. She needed answers to her questioning mind, and maybe in her sleep, a calm state of knowing would grace her  
  
He shut the door quickly and quietly, and bolted back to his room, hoping that nobody had noticed him missing. He slid back into his still warm bed, and fell asleep at once. She was fine. She was fine. She was fine.....  
  
Yet in his soft dreaming, something still tugged at his heart.  
  
****  
  
"Oi! Deadbeat, get your lazy arse out of bed!" Harry heard as a pillow was flung at his face. "Wake up sunshine, we have potions today!" Ron called, and did a little dance, then pretended to hang himself with hand motions. As he made fake gagging and dieing sounds and melodramatically fell to the floor with the amusement of the other boys in the room, Harry suddenly remembered last night, and was silent.  
  
"What you're deal Sleeping beauty?" Ron joked, as the other guys left the room for breakfast.  
  
"I'm just thinking" Harry said softly, while in a bit of a trance.  
  
Ron stopped joking, came to him and stood by his side, grabbing his shoulders. Harry was so pale, and his eyes seemed almost lifeless. "What is it?" he asked, perfectly serious.  
  
"I'm just worried-- Ah, I'll talk to her about it at breakfast..." He said pushing past Ron, still in a bit of a trance, while Ron merely watched. He shrugged his shoulders, then followed his best friend down the stairs to breakfast.  
  
****  
The Halls had never seemed to stretch for so long. Harry shut the painting of the fat lady, and started to walk down to the Great Hall. He seemed to be someplace unworldly. People passed him, and they seemed only stranger's, ghosts of what he had known. The world seemed gray, and dark, yet amazingly bright at the same time. The end of the hall always seemed like the end of a dark tunnel. At the end, he was always bathed in radiant light, then he would move, and the tunnel would begin again. It seemed as if his feet were moving, yet he was asleep, and simply floating along the way.  
  
Suddenly, as he had left earth for a while, he was brought back by brilliantly happy bursts from bustling students and staff, as they made their ways around the Great Hall. Again, alive, but in a trance he walked to the Gryffindor table. All around him were the happy faces of people he didn't know. He had known them in some other life time it seemed, but now, they were all foreigners in his mind. The long tables beside him were like highways to some unknown destination.  
  
Without thinking or realizing, he found himself sitting down. Across from him was Seamus, Pansy was on his right, and Ron he found was on his left. For a moment he stared blankly at them, then shook himself out of whatever was going on, and came back to reality. Pansy's slick voice he could hear in his ear, as she talked back and forth with Lavender  
  
"Yeah I was going to wake her up, but when she fell asleep last night she was so quiet, and she didn't read. So I figured she must have broken up with Harry or something dreadful happened to her" She joked, then sneered at Harry.  
  
"Hey, 'Arry" Seamus said through a mouthful of waffles, "When did you an' Curls go out?" He asked confused.  
  
"It was a joke brilliant" Ron cracked, then sneered at Pansy, "She's just upset that Hermione happened to be friends with guys, rather then just staring at them all the time."  
  
She 'humpf'-ed and turned her head, smacking Harry with her ponytail.  
  
"And Seamus," Ron said as he turned back to face him, "Herm doesn't like being called Curls. She rather be dead than called that. She thinks it's stereotypical or something. Some big word that isn't in my normal vocabulary, let me tell you." He said returning to his plate of 'tatters.  
  
"I don't think it's a 'stereotype' Ron, but excellent effort" Dean said from next to Seamus. They laughed at Ron's poor use of words, then returned to their own thoughts. Harry didn't say a word, but only listened. So she hadn't read last night, and was quiet...didn't seem like the Hermione he knew.  
  
Harry didn't eat at all that breakfast, but kept his eyes on the grand doorway that led into the Hall. She didn't come. Only person after person that seemed strange to him. She didn't come. After living a good five years here, all of these people who by now were supposed to be like family, seemed different and unreal. She didn't come.  
  
With a sudden rush of cold wind, thousands of owls came bustling in through the lofty windows. Harry slowly raised his eyes as all the other around him, as if in slow motion, jumped to get things. He spotted his snowy owl among the rest, with a small piece of parchment tied to one leg. She slowly fluttered down in front of him. All the time in the world seemed to stop, and his head throbbed with pain. He ran his fingers up his forehead and through his head, before reaching for the letter.  
  
As he read, he heard her voice in his head. A soft delicate echo, cooing to him, loving him.  
  
'I cannot go on. There is so much that hurts, and so much that shouldn't, and so much that I want to hurt, and I don't know what to do. Harry, I loved you. More then your friend, more than anything. I wanted to love you forever. You have no idea, and you'll never have an idea. Tell my parents it isn't their fault, even though they helped, and don't tell Ron. He isn't as strong as you are Harry. Don't tell him why. Goodbye. ~Hermione'  
  
Time stopped. There wasn't time, only the dreadful sound of his heart beating in his chest, and it drumming in his ears. "No...No..No.." He started quietly, shaking a bit, then it grew to a roar. His violent voice echoed in the stone walls of the Hall, No. No NO. NO!!! NO!!! NO!! NO!!!!!" He dropped the letter, and ran.  
  
The looks from the people in the hall followed him, but he didn't care, he didn't care any more than Voldemort cared about his victims. He only cared about Hermione. Hermione. Hermione. He had to stop her before it was too late.   
  
Before he realized what he had done, he found himself outside the fat lady, as if his feet had wings, and he had just flew with all he sped he was given, and all the grace he deserved. He flung open the door, without even speaking the password, as if he had been granted some power to eliminate the magic there. He bounded up the stairs, three at a time. The fire in the common room was so hot, a pounding, wretched flame, that merely reminded him of his rush, his desire to see her, and know that it was all a sick joke. It had to be some sick joke. Nobody kills themselves. Not Hermione.  
  
He came to the door, and flung it open, and saw her, lying there, in the position as the night before. He remained frozen, staring at her.  
  
He then bolted from the doorway to her bedside, and knelt beside her. "Hermione" He pleaded, "Hermione, wake up. Herm, I love you, for the Love of God wake up!!!" he screamed at her cold body as he started to cry. His breathing was heavy, partially from running so far, and partially because he was in shock.  
  
He grabbed her soft, delicate white hand. It was so cold. "Hermione, Hermione, Hermione...." He said as he stroked it. His ruff callous fingers rubbing against her perfect skin, "Herm, wake up. Please wake up. Please. Herm I'm begging you….Hermione?" Nothing.  
  
Harry's head fell, as if it's weight was enough to kill him. His heart beat slowly, a death knoll inside of him…all of him heard it's call. He wept openly on her covers. His arms had been thrown around her, and he cradled her from the ground. As he rocked back and forth, saying her name over and over again, in the back of his jumbled mind, he could hear shoes clashing against the hard, cold stone of the building around him.  
  
"Oh God" was breathlessly muttered from the doorway, "My god Harry, what...what the hell? Hermione? Hermione?!?! HERM!!!" As Harry back away, Ron lunched for her shoulders and shook her violently. "HERMIONE!!! Wake up!" He didn't cry. He only screamed. Harsh, ruff, loud blaring screams that only rang eternally in Harry's ears.  
  
"Ron..." Harry said in a barely audible weep. He stopped, and lay her down on the bed.  
  
Ron, breathing heavily from his run and his fear as well ,only glanced at Harry. His soft blue meeting vibrantly sorrowful green. There was a common understanding between them. Ron broke the glance, and looked at Hermione, lying still and silent on her bed. As he stood above her, and looked at Harry sitting in a puddle of his own tears on the ground. He came slowly to him, and embraced him. Harry cried, Ron hugged, Harry hugged, and Ron cried, and neither could understand what had happened.  
  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
This is the second installment. I'm planning on one more. The last one will explain everything a bit more. It'll include the summary of what the hell just happened. That you for reading, and I shall you all soon in the third chapter of Answers.  
  
Pip  
Cailin  
Tinuviel  
Magical Me  
MidnightGremlin 


	3. Answers

ANSWERS  
  
It wasn't very long before others started to wonder what Harry had run off for. Ron being his best friend, had left the table a jumbled second after Harry bolted, but the others were used to Harry, Ron and Hermione's sudden 'A-HA!' moments, so at first they didn't do anything at first. But when nothing happened, Neville became too anxious.  
  
Being rather chunky, he arrived after a while and found Harry and Ron together, on the floor, both in tears. Neville just looked at the bed, and his mouth hung open. He didn't move for a long time, but stood frozen staring at her. A sudden realization dawned on him, and that caused him to run all the way back down to the Great Hall and get Dumbledore.  
  
Later, Harry remembered very little of this. All he could think of was her. How she had been so weary last night, how she had been struggling to find out the answers to the wild questions in her heart and in her mind, how she had come to him to find them. He couldn't help her. He hadn't helped her! It was all his fault! If he had been faster to respond, quicker to take action, smarter to seek guidance from somebody, braver to face her....if only he had been more of a person, he could have saved her. He could have saved her.  
  
Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall ran up to the door stark white. Harry took a few brief seconds to look up and meet Dumbledores shocked, and for once frightened blue eyes. Snape moved backwards to close the door to the multitude of Gryffindors now standing outside of it, all of them longing to understand why they're professors had bolted so quickly from a fine breakfast.   
  
There was no emotion, or at least visible emotion in Snapes eyes. They were simply dark, and for some reason, it seemed as if he knew something about this that no one else did, and wished to push the dust under the rug before somebody higher up could hear too much. McGonagall moved to the boys, and tried to stir them and get them on their feet. Her usually pursed little mouth opened a good centimeter, and her breathing was rash, scared. Her eyes showed it too. A deep fear for something Harry could not understand, and a pity for the two boys weeping on the ground before her. But Dumbledore; he moved to the bedside, and took out his wand. Harry suddenly realized that there was hope, she would be fine, Dumbledore could save her, Dumbledore could do anything.  
  
He waved it once over Hermione's body, and a deep blue, limp spark shot from it for just an instant. Then the wand was silent, and placed back in Dumbledore's robes.  
  
"Suicide" He muttered, his head hanging low. Harry and Ron watched him moved slowly away from the bedside, and across the room to where they now were now standing with McGonagall.  
  
Harry wanted to scream, 'Can't you save her?!? Can't you bring her back?!? You're the greatest wizard of all time, can't you fix this?' but the words wouldn't come.  
  
"We shall have to contact her parents. Professor McGonagall, would you please do that, then tell Mr. Filch to prepare a place for...her...to stay until they arrive" Harry thought it was odd the way he used 'her' instead of his ever common Miss Granger, or Hermione on rare occasion. But never had he called Hermione, 'her'. It was as if she wasn't worthy or real enough to be given a name, and it hit Harry as hammer hits a nail. She wasn't real anymore, she was gone.  
  
McGonagall left the room, and shut the door behind her. Snape stepped forward and asked if there was anything he could do.   
  
"One moment." Replied Dumbledore solemnly, "Mr. Potter" With those words it was as if he was taunting Harry because he was a 'Mr.', and Hermione was a 'her'. "Would you please go fetch that cloak of yours so as to not alarm the student body while we escort her out of the room." His eyes didn't meet Harry's. Dumbledore wouldn't look at him, only called for him to do his bidding.  
  
Harry didn't say anything, but stared at Hermione lying there, peaceful, at ease, yet beautifully ugly in her frozen state of grace. Harry couldn't have moved if he had wanted to, his eyes never left Hermiones cold, white face. Ron, being the bigger person for the moment left to grab it. Snape followed.  
  
"Mr. Potter" Dumbledore said softly.  
  
Harry didn't say anything, but his eyes stayed on her. The room was so cold, and so silent. An inward breath was a sonic boom in Harry's ears.  
  
"Mr. Potter"  
  
Nothing. Harry, not even acknowledging Dumbledore, went to her side again. He sat beside her body on the bed, and picked up her limp arm. His thoughts were some where else, maybe in that desired moment of time, with her. "She came to me last night. She came to me, and I couldn't do anything. I....I could have done...something. Something to save her...right?"  
  
His words were timid, and barely loud enough to reach Dumbledore's ears. "No. You couldn't have saved her. She was meant to go, just as all things that happen are meant to be." He said, taking a seat next to Harry.  
  
"Couldn't you have done something Sir?" Harry asked, his eyes ready to tumble like waterfalls again. "Aren't you the greatest wizard of our modern times? Aren't you the only one Voldemort never wanted to face. Aren't you always there to make things right?!?! Always?"  
  
"Not this time Mr. Potter."  
  
****  
  
Ron came back with Snape, but Dumbledore was the one who took the cloak and Hermione. Harry didn't filch when the door slammed after Ron closed it, he didn't shudder when Dumbledore talked with Snape, but as soon as Dumbledore moved to pick up Hermione, his head shot around, and his eyes, fierce with anger, glared at Dumbledore.  
  
"Mr. Potter." Dumbledore said calmly.  
  
Harry breathed in, and looked solemnly back at Hermione. So peaceful, so still. Could she have found her answer? Could her death, and all the misery left in the world....was that the solution to all of her problems?  
  
Dumbledore carefully picked her up in his arms. At times he seemed so old, and the weight of the world was too much, but as he held her like a child falling asleep on their parents lap, it was as if she weighed nothing, and Dumbledore felt nothing except his obligation to her.  
  
Harry watched as Snape put the cloak over Dumbledore's shoulders, and walked in front of him so as to part the way of the Gyrffindors in the common room. Harry and Ron were left alone in her dreary tomb to ponder away at whatever sane thoughts were left.  
  
*****  
  
Mr. and Mrs. Granger arrived the next day. Harry saw very little of their arival, but it wasn't that he wanted to, and it wasn't that he didn't want to, it was that the world seemed not to care what he thought, or what he did. It was more that he was a shadow waiting for the sun of Hermione to return.  
  
Once he climbed out of the boys dormitory window, and sat on the roof of the tower, his scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, and the wind beating on his face in the frigid December air. The world around him was so cold, and all the life that normally flourished around the castle seemed hidden, almost in mourning. The castle wasn't the beautiful Hogwarts he loved anymore. His sharp green eyes wandered aimlessly over the turrets and towers, taking them in a different fashion. Hogwarts would never feel that same as it had those first five years there. He could tell now. This was the end of the happy-go-lucky days of free frolicking fun. Now the dark age was coming. Was this a sign? Was Hermione a final shout of warning for the world? Because, if she couldn't face the harsh reality of life, could any of them? Were they all lost?  
  
Harry sat on the roof for hours. It wasn't until the even colder dark of the night lay over him and the painfully bright glows from castle windows had sat for a few hours, did it dawn on him to go back inside. In those last remaining years of Hogwarts, when Harry was nowhere to be found, Ron always knew. He wouldn't dare tell anyone though, because when Harry left the pain of the Hogwarts halls, the only escape he had then was the roof. Where for brief whispers in the wind, he was with her.  
  
****  
  
The morning after the eons since he found her shone brightly in his window. Harry silently cursed the sky for even considering to shine on the last day his Hermione would be part of it. Today was her funeral, and her burial.  
  
The Grangers had decided to have her buried at Hogwarts. Maybe it was because Hermione had always felt more a part of the wizarding world rather than the other. Maybe it was because Hermione had lived the best, and most influential years of her life here. Or possibly because the Grangers saw the intense pain in Harry and Ron's eyes, and deemed it best that she stay with them. The boys had loved her in the same way they had, and Harry especially, they felt, needed her.  
  
Harry didn't speak to Ron at all that day. Harry hadn't eaten anything for those two days, or spoken a word to anyone since he found her. His head weighed down on his neck, and left him with an insufferable weight on his neck that wouldn't go away. His breathing was strained, and painful. His eyes were fogged over, and he felt so sick, that he could die right there. And in a way, maybe that would be better. Maybe if he could be with her all his pain would ease, and he wouldn't long for her, he wouldn't hear her voice around every corner of the castle, in every whisper in the hall, in every call of the wind. Maybe if he could silence the world around him, he could find her again.  
  
But the only problem with that, was that he didn't know how, and he didn't think he could. Could he take his own life? Even when everything seemed so horrible, there must be some light at the end of the tunnel, right? Wasn't there always something to live for? But every time he asked himself, the answers never came. Maybe it was the constant questioning of his spirit that weighed down on him the most, or maybe it was just that he missed her. Could his pain be that simple? Was pain that simple?  
  
He walked down the many stone halls, he could hear the echo's of his lone foot steps. His boots clinking against the merciless stone of the building. His head hung at his chest, and he didn't want to pick it back up. His feet led him, he didn't think about getting there only to see her lying in black, looking so fake and unreal, so white, ghostly pale and dead. Dead. Dead. The word still didn't seem like a word. Was there a single word for all of this that he dealt with. For all of this that flashed in front of him, burning his heart and mind with her. One word couldn't be it.  
  
As he walked, he didn't. He floated in a dream like delirium that made his feet move, but not his mind. For days his mind had only been in that room, seeing her over and over again for the first time. He suddenly realized that his walk had brought him to the Great Hall subconsciously. His pale white hand fell upon the door handle, and he pushed it open.  
  
Inside, all the light from day was out, and the light of few burning candles lit the room alone. Murdersome silenced reigned in this hall. The only noise to be heard were the ever constant sobs from the Hogwarts students. The house tables were set up, and instead of the house banners black was draped in a magnificent fashion with gold Gryffindor symbols on them in front of an H. Hermione was a Gryffindor. She was a Gryffindor. Was....the word echoed in Harry's mind. She would never be an "is" again, always a "was"   
  
Harry walked down the aisle of the tables. It was a long dark hallway, with no light at the end, only a walk that took eons. Without tracking the time that had passed, he found the front of the Great Hall, and saw her. She was lying there, in the midst of a packed hall, her coffin open to them all. Harry took his seat where he had been told to sit, up with the staff, next to Hermione's parents. Ron was already there, stark white as a ghost, and staring at her, same as Harry now.  
  
"I just realized" Ron said amidst the deafening silence and sobbing of the Great Hall, "This is the last time we'll ever see her."  
  
Harry looked at Ron, as Ron watched her. Her coffin was right below their seats, her eyes shut to the world around them, her lips closed, her face painted up to look like she was still alive, but Harry could tell it was makeup. Hermione never wore makeup, and now that her freckles were hidden. She looked unnatural.  
  
He got up and moved from his seat, to the side of the coffin. He bent over her revealed face, so silent and perfect, and he kissed her forehead. His hot breath touched her frozen skin, and his felt a shiver go up his spine. He cried again, for he had loved her.  
  
"Hermione" He whispered into her still ear in the depths of the silk lined coffin, "I did love you, I did. It wasn't that of friendship, I only said so because I though that was what you wanted to hear. If it's all my fault that you're gone, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, kill me, please kill me too, because I can't live in this life without you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, words cannot express the pain, and blackness in my heart. It hurts Herm, it hurts so much to be here without you. And I don't want it to hurt forever, it can't hurt forever...yet I know, it will hurt forever. I will hurt until the end of my days. I don't know how long it will be, even less sure now that you've passed so quickly, but I am sure that it will feel like ages upon ages of only knowing disappointment, and sorrow, and loss.  
  
"You know how those guys feel when they amputate a leg" he continued, going out on a limb, "all of them say, that for the longest time, it feels like it's still there, a phantom leg. Hermione," His whispered even softer, and let the back of his hand run down her cold cheek, "You'll always be here, I can feel it now. It feels like I'll wake up in the morning, and you'll be waiting there for me, but you won't. And I know that when class is about to start, and your seat is empty, I'll worry about how late you are, but you're not. And when we graduate, and your name isn't called, I'll think a mistake has been made, but it hasn't. I'll never, ever get over loosing you. You're a part of me, and I feel empty now that you're not here. Hermione Granger, I don't know how I'm going to keep going, how I'm going to keep living, how I'm going to stay strong, how I'm going to be steady, how I'm going to wake up every morning and keep being me when you're not here.  
  
"But there's nothing else to do now. Nothing. I can't change the fact that I didn't tell you everything. And I can't change the pain that you felt a few nights ago, was it only a few nights ago? And I can't change that when this casket closes, I will never see you again. Never see your shining face, your brilliant smile, your wonderful smirk that tells me that I made the wrong choice of words. I'll never have your homework to check against mine, you're amazing brilliance to help me see my faults, or you clever wit that could get us out of any situation, or your sheer logic to save our arses when we need it the most. I love you Hermione, and I'll never stop loving you, and... I don't know how to say this, but....goodbye." His tears streamed down the gullies of his face, and leaked onto her skin. He plucked a couple honey brown curls from her head, and placed them in a long glass phial he still from the potions room all those years ago when she had created the Polyjuice potion. He placed the hairs in there, her note was already in there as well, and he put the phial back in his left pocket. After that day, Harry never wore his robes without the tiny phial beside his heart.  
  
****  
  
The funeral started, and Dumbledore led the Grangers to Hermione's coffin, where they looked on the baby's face for the last time, and they closed the cover. Dumbledore preformed a spell to keep her safe, to keep her from decaying, and to keep the creatures in the ground from coming into her coffin.  
  
Harry barely paid attention to Dumbledores eulogy. He'd rather have heard, Hermione say "Sshh Harry, I'm trying to do my Arthmacy homework!" once rather then listen to a thousand wonderful death speeches given by Dumbledore.  
  
When the funeral ended, Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Neville and Percy, (who along with the rest of the Weasly family had come up to the school for the funeral), stepped forward to bear her coffin out to the grounds. The coffin led the procession, followed by the Grangers and Dumbledore, the staff, then the student body.  
  
Harry and Ron were the first ones outside, and the first ones to see the world that Hermione was to lie in for the rest of time. The sky was a heartless gray, and the deep green pine trees of the forest were covered with the dismal new fallen white snow. Perfectly bleak. The sun was hidden behind the gray masses of clouds, and didn't shine, not at all. Harry's feet slowly made their way across the snow on the grounds, crunching, disrupting the perfectly balanced silence outside. The wind blew around him and right through his robes as the silence of the procession walked on.  
  
Very few knew of the small graveyard back in the forest behind greenhouse number five. Cedric had been buried there, but that had been private, so the students didn't know about this place. The last burial before his was that of Moaning Myrtle, so the graves had lain undisrupted, and silent for almost 50 years, the students of Hogwarts never knowing about one hidden secret of their beloved castle. It looked just like all typical small graveyards. Small metal fence around the perimeter of it, and one large wrought iron archway that led into the land of frozen tombstones.  
  
Harry, Ron, and company placed the coffin beside the newest tombstone in the back of the yard. Hermione's parents, the staff, and the Gyrffindor fifth years came into the yard, the rest of the school stayed around the metal fence, so not to disrupt those who were closest to her. Her tombstone was fresh and new, crisp rock, her life long legacy engraved in a few meager sentences.  
  
'Hermione Granger  
Beloved Daughter, Devoted Friend  
September 22nd 1985- December 5th 2001  
May She Find the Answers to All of her Questions'  
  
Harry knelt in the snow, and let his robes and long black coat drop into the snow and dirt beneath his feet as he wiped off the first frost from the tombstone. Fred and George began to dig the grave, and the onlookers watched, in silence.  
  
Professor Sprout walked among the people on the inside, and gave Hermione's Parents, Dumbledore, the Weasly's, and Harry and Ron, Red Roses to throw her grave. Harry watched as the Weasly twins shoveled away at the almost rock hard ground that hadn't been disturbed in centuries. There must have been magic in the ground, there must have been, because he felt that she was with him. He felt her head leaning on his shoulder, watching in silence with him. The wind blew around his feet, lifting his long black coat from the ground, and letting it dance a bit in the air. He lifted up his hand as to place it on her head that lay on his shoulder.  
  
Her spirit left, and he felt alone again, and colder than he had before. He looked over at Lynn Granger, Herm's mother, and watched her cry. She made no noise, but the tears came all the same. Harry had spent most of his tears when he found her and the shock had come. Harry stopped watching Fred and George dig deeper into the earth, but he watched the people around him reacting. So many people. Some who cared so much, and some would couldn't care less.   
  
Fred and George clamored out of the hole and moved once again to the casket. Harry put his rose on the ground for a moment as he moved to the casket. None of it seemed real. It all had to be some sick dream. He was going to wake up and she would be ok. He had to wake up....But he picked up the casket with all of the others, and they slowly lowered it into the ground.  
  
Harry stepped back breathing heavily. Dumbledore started to speak once more. Harry's head was swirling. She was getting further and further away. He was loosing her. She wasn't at his side, or on the wind, she was stuck in the dirt, six feet of thick merciless dirt. His breathing became more rash. He held onto Ron's shoulder for a moment, to steady himself. The Weasly's placed their flowers in the ground. He couldn't breath. Dumbledore next. He wanted to scream. Mr. and Mrs. Granger stepped forward to put theirs in. Harry wanted to stop it all, forget it ever happened, get on with life. Ron stepped forward to put his in. He wanted to grab his shoulder, make him stop...but he couldn't. He was frozen with a cold fear for Hermione. Where did she go? What really happens when you die? What if she was unhappy? What if she wanted to come back? What if she hated him now for letting her go? What if she wished he was there too?  
  
Ron nudged him forward. With high heart rate, and jagged breathing Harry Potter, the boy who lived, stepped up to the hole in the ground. His sharp green eyes focused on the depths of the earth in which they were letting her stay forever. The long darkness. The long dark tunnel shooting into the belly of the earth, where no light ever came.  
  
"Harry, you're thinking about it too much, just let it go" Ron whispered painfully in his ear so that nobody else could hear, even in the dead silence of the frozen forest.  
  
The Rose fell. It was the first clud he heard. Many followed.  
  
As he stepped away from her, the wind blew around them once more. Fred and George picked up the shovels again, and started to fill the hole.  
  
Clud  
  
Flash. A nerdy big-toothed girl on the train  
  
Clud  
  
Flash. Weeping girl, and a Full-grown mountain troll.  
  
Clud  
  
Flash "I picked it up for a bit of light reading"  
  
"Stop" Harry whispered, his head aching from flashes of her. Ron made a motion to his brothers to stop filling in the hole for a moment. Harry was seeing his life with her flash before his eyes. He had read somewhere that a person is truly dead to you as soon as you hear the cluds of dirt on the coffin. He had to get out of there. He couldn't bare to have her memories resurface again and again, taunting him, haunting him.  
  
Fred and George resumed pilling it in.  
  
Clud  
  
Flash. A kind girl with an amazing grip for logic saves his arse.  
  
Harry ran. He turned and ran away from that horrid place. How could they put her in a place so cold, so void of happiness? He ran, took a leap with his hands over the metal fence, and headed somewhere. Ron moved to go after him, but Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder, and Ron stayed put.  
  
Clud...in the distance  
  
Flash. The hospital wing and whiskers on a girls face  
  
Clud...even further away  
  
Flash. The Hospital wing, a frozen stone cold girl, near death along with the others.  
  
He ran faster. The memories and old terrors were burning at his heart. He couldn't listen to her die all over again, this time in his mind. He ran deep into the forest. Maybe somewhere in the dark depths of mystery he could loose himself, and not have to worry about the pain. Maybe if he kept running forever he would forget about Hermione, forget about the note, forget about all he could have done to save her, forget who he was, forget everything.  
  
His long thin legs pumped with madness as he ran along forgotten paths in the forbidden forest. The giant trees beside him were monsters of memories, pursuing him, tracking him down. He kept running even as his face became red with heat, and his robes and long black coat beat at the backs of his legs, he kept running. Even as the cold air bit harshly at the sweat drops on his forehead, he kept running. Even as his burning muscles and crackling tendons curled him into a final position of agony, he staggered forward a little longer. His heart was filled with rage, His mind was filled with questions, His soul was weary from stress, He was filled with her. Harry Potter collapsed in the snow bank three miles from the school in the deepest darkest part of the forest.  
  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Alrighty, here is my logic for the tombstone. The British version of the books were first published in 1997, when she was 11 (On the date to catch the train she had to be 11). Hermione I figure, is one of the oldest in the year, because JK has said she was born in Sept. (Cut off is the date of arrival at the station, the 1st of Sept.), I believe the 22nd is her birthday, I know it's twenty-something. So, subtract the years, and since she's older then Harry who barely snuck in with a July birthday, she would have been born the year before him, and Harry would have been born in July of 86. Add the 16 years, and since it's December a few months after her sixteenth birthday, therefore, this would have taken place in 2001. Trust me, I thought long and hard about this. I have heard a great deal of people saying that Harry's parents were killed in 1982, that would mean she was born in 1980, cause Harry was a year old at the time of his parents deaths, and she's older. So, either she died in 96, or 01, who knows. Don't worry about it.  
  
Oh, and try NOT to figure out what the hell I was talking about in the last paragraph, I can barely even understand it, so I doubt you can. I wrote as I thought, so, that's what my brain looks like. I went through and tried to edit it so that it would be readable by people other than me. Blah!  
  
I think this one deals a bit more with why, rather then how. And it deals a lot more with Harry's feelings then before I think, and what exactly was going on in his mind. 


End file.
